


Cicada Cries

by Myrrlhe



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Autism Interpretation, Between Zexal I and II, Gen, M/M, inherent loneliness..please understand, local child struggles to understand deep attatchment, that's it that's the plot end scene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 00:31:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18884452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myrrlhe/pseuds/Myrrlhe
Summary: After The World Duel Carnival, Yuma tries to sort out his feelings, but the air is too loud and way, way too hot. Summer is coming and Yuma doesn't know what to feel anymore.





	Cicada Cries

‘Let’s form Zexal.’ The suggestion floats in the toasted air, like a side product of the steadily warming sunlight. It’s not the season yet though, the leaf-rustling breeze that hits Yuma’s arms still cool enough for sweat to run off on its own. Yuma gives the leg hanging off the hammock a little swing, kicking some of the drowsiness off. It’s that kind of day, where you go out to school, leaping down entire staircases in cold morning adrenaline, then you get home and your uniform’s drenched in sweat that came from nowhere and when at all. It’s not the best of feelings, but it’s a school holiday anyway so Yuma shoves that thought aside and focuses on the more important things. “Astral, did you say something?”

“Hm?” He doesn’t even have to turn his head to know the being from the Emperor’s Key is right next to him, soft blue, jangling earrings, with cat sun-and-moon eyes. He does anyway, meeting their mismatched eyes. “Nothing in particular. Is there something that should be brought to our attention?”

Yuma makes a noise with his throat. “Man, you’re the same as usual.” He gives the hammock a swing again. Lately Astral had been spending more and more time inside the key now that they had won the Numbers from Dr. Faker and the Tron family. It makes something in him antsy, even though they come out whenever he asks and talk and sigh and sometimes smile like how they usually do. Astral is still there, staring at him with a silent question in their look. “It’s a school holiday today.” Yuma blurts out. “And then we have the weekends.”

Astral doesn’t even blink. “Is that so.” Not a question.

There’s a buzz in his ears, the warm air sticking to his skin, making it itch. “So, uh.” Come on, think. “I was thinking of going out to where the Duel Lodge is, maybe set a camp outside or something. Maybe then I’ll come across some hidden buried treasure that’s a hundred billion years old and get really famous. Like a spaceship or a UFO or-” He announces all of this pretty loudly, making up for the fact that he really didn’t know anything he was saying. So when his sister suddenly bursts into the attic with a “Why are you shouting?” he yelps, falling off the hammock face first.

Sister Akari sighs as she climbs up the ladder. “I just came to put your uniform back in your room.” She smacks his head with the mentioned clothes. “If you’re not going to do the laundry, at least pick your clothes up yourself.” He sticks his tongue out in response. “So why are you yelling to yourself again?”

“Uh.” He opens his mouth and closes it again. “It’s a school holiday?”

Akari rolls her eyes, which could probably shatter bricks if she ever wanted to. “Some of us don’t have a holiday, so keep it down.” She kinda turns away, the sunlight masking her face. “Anyways if you want to go camping, Gran and I can pack some duel lunches for you.”

Yuma blinks. “Huh?”  
She steamrolls his confusion flat. “I still have work until tomorrow morning, and I think Gran talked about going out to meet with her friends until noon.” She gives him a full look again and it hits him. Ah. That’s why. “Are you going to be with us to visit them? We might rent a place near there for the night too.” You know, it’s kinda awful that she doesn’t say it clearly to him. He might not listen to anything in class most of the time, but he’s not an idiot.

“Yeah-” For a second he briefly meets two pair of eyes, in a jungle locked behind a picture frame. Astral is still there too, pale blue almost blending in with the background. “...Actually, I don’t think I will this time.” Akari’s gaze flits to his hand and he realizes it has the Emperor’s key, the gold glinting like a secret. He grins, eyelids coincidentally closed. ”I’m sure teacher won’t ever live it down if I pack all of my stuff after only a day! I’m gonna kattobingu it up and show that I’m better with the mountains than he ever would be!”

Akari gives off another snort. “Sure you will. Try not falling off another hammock.” His sister makes her way down despite him throwing his uniform at her(it misses anyway).

Astral approaches him, their slender fingers almost touching his shoulder. “What is this place your sister was talking about, Yuma?”

Yuma scratches his head with a sigh. Too many things in such a short span of time. “She’s talking about my parent’s grave. Tomorrow’s my dad’s birthday.” He stands up, dusting off his pants. “Guess we’re really going camping, after all, Astral.”

 

* * *

Yuma regrets this, just a bit. As if making up for the fact that the trees are blocking about 60% of the sun, the air feels like jelly melting in a microwave in real time. He bolsters up his backpack. Sure, it’s not as big as the last time his Grandma gave him to deliver to Teacher as a ‘’’small’’’ errand, but he might have over-prepared for this, just a tiny bit.

Speaking of Teacher Roku, he agreed to the whole camping thing so easily Yuma feels a bit copped out. ”Sure, just don’t burn the whole forest down,” he said, waving him off. “I don’t have insurance on this dojo yet.” Yuma then asked what an insurance was and why he didn’t have one yet when Teacher was a bajillion gazillion years old. His head still smarted from the smacks he got from that.

“Yuma, what are these loud alarm sounds in the air? Are we in any danger?” Astral, floating(lucky), asks.

“Huh? Are you talking about the cicadas? They’re just bugs.” A smirk rose up. “I thought you knew everything about the modern world now after getting Three’s Numbers, guess you still need my help, huh?” Three wasn’t Japanese, so that probably was the reason why.

“Perhaps.” Even with their response, Astral didn’t seem like he heard him at all, the markings on their face furrowed center, arms crossed, hand covering mouth.

Frowning, Yuma waves a hand in front of them. “Astral?” Astral might not be a ghost but they still can’t be touched like one and something itches again, firing up with impatience and sweat. “Astral! Hey!”

Astral, finally, acknowledges him. “Yuma.” Their voice is quiet.

“What’s with you lately? You’ve been seriously distant.” He tries to put his hands on his hips in that scolding pose sister Akari does all the time, but the bag makes it impossible to move his shoulders.

“...” Astral goes silent in that way when they’re thinking over something, eyelids slightly lowered over their cat pupils. Time feels slower with the air being solid, and maybe that’s why Yuma can see that Astral’s eyelids are sorta see-through, white and gold still striking underneath the sheen of blue. “It’s just a premonition, nothing more, nothing less.”

“Prenati...What?”

“Pre-mo-ni-tion.” Astral spells it out slowly. “A....feeling, as if a storm is brewing.”

He realizes that there’s real worry in both Astral’s face and voice, and he opens his mouth to say something-but everything is hot and fuzzy and no sound comes out. What can he say in this situation? What can he do right now? He’s still so so frustrated about something… “Astral, you…”

Astral shakes their head, the clinks that should have come from the earrings going side-to-side silent. He doesn’t understand how that works, like the rest of Astral. Maybe it’s just the heat. “We shouldn’t waste much of our energy on something that hasn’t arrived yet.” They smile. “Kattobingu, right?”

“You can’t just use it like that.” It’s still too hot and he still can’t think too hard without feeling like the cicadas are inside his brain but he’d have to have no heart to still be angry at whatever it is after something like that. Through the buzzing film of sweat, he thinks he’s smiling too. That’s good.

Yuma must have zoned out for a bit because the ground under his feet feels a lot more level, and Yuma breathes out in relief. Almost there. He’s pretty thirsty, but he’s gotta set up the tent first. Find a good spot that’s not too close or far from a water source, has to be on the leeward side of a slope(The Duel Lodge was already on that side so he doesn’t have to think about that one.), kinda shady…

What was that feeling, a thought pokes him. That nagging buzz, like a bee trapped under his skin. Yuma makes a face at the thought. Gross. Mega gross.

“Yuma.” He lets out a yelp, almost tripping over his own feet. Astral, upside down, doesn’t seem to notice how he almost died(thank god). “You’re uncharacteristically more somber than usual today.” Of course the itch is back now that he started thinking about it, like when you accidentally scratch a mosquito bite you forgot all about.

“I swear you’re using all those really hard words on purpose,” Yuma mutters, holstering the bag up properly. Sweat slicks the underneath of his fingernails. It’s still way, way too hot.

 

* * *

“Cold!” The stream shoots a gazillion needles into his feet, his ankles, all the way up to a good chunk of his leg below the knee. It’s so cold that it hurts, but Yuma can finally breathe. He hurls a handful of the water into the air, shouting as it soaks him. It’s all so exciting, exhilarating that he can’t help but laugh “Astral, come on! The water’s really nice!”

Silence. He looks around. Nothing. When did they get back in the Emperor’s Key? He gives the thing a few taps. “A-stra-l!”

With a flutter of gold, Astral summons themselves onto the field. “Yes, Yuma?”

“When did you get back in the key? I thought you were still hanging around the campsite.” Cupping more water in his hands, Yuma brings it up for the alien to see. “Check this out!” Without waiting, he throws it directly through Astral, the water splashing back to the stream behind them. “How’s that?”

Astral shakes their head. “Nothing, unfortunately.”

Yuma splashes some more water at him. “Come on, isn’t it still amazing?”

He feels, rather than hear, Astral’s sigh. It’s a light one, tingling against a spot on his arm. It makes him shiver. “I suppose.” They raise a hand, “The water flows endlessly to the bottom, and becomes a part of something bigger, such as the ocean. Then it would evaporate, and become the clouds, and fall back down onto the earth, supplying the groundwater that supplies the stream that we see now. An endless combo befitting of life.”

Yuma blinks. “I. I know that one. We-uh-heard that in class that one time, right?”

“About a month ago, yes. You might want to listen to class more, Yuma, instead of drooling on your desk. They’re quite interesting.”  
“You-” Quick temper rises up for a retort(even if what Astral saying is the truth), but he turns his back to them instead, snorting. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“I am?” He glances over to Astral again, who has their head tilted like a bird. With all the strange markings, it makes them look more angular.

“You are! You are, you are, you definitely are!” It’s all really stupid but he’s grinning anyway, and Astral definitely is smiling too, even if they’re trying to hide it by being all stoic or whatever. Yuma kicks up some more water as punishment, even though the only one who’s getting wetter is him anyway. It’s definitely stupid, and maybe then they can both forget what’s eating Astral up. It’s not for them, it’s for him. He’d said that a lot of times before, but this time he felt like he needed to say it one more time in his head.

A gasp. “Yuma!” He whirled around, almost jumping out of his skin. Dr. Faker-Tron-Barian- "It seems we have created a rainbow.”

Immediately he felt stupid. “Oh.”

There it really was, the air where he splashed all that water through really shimmering with multi-colored light. “It’s my first time seeing one so up close before. Even with the knowledge of how this phenomenon comes to be, it’s still beautiful.” Their eyes are fixated on it, glowing in admiration.

The slight lifted curves of Astral’s lips, they made him ridiculously soft.

…

That’s a weird thought to have. Maybe the sudden cold chilled his brain a bit too much.

They’re both silent, Yuma thinks he’s holding his breath, and cicada screams fill it in instead, crowding out Yuma’s thoughts. It’s strange, he can’t focus all of a sudden, on the rainbow, or on Astral. Astral. All of these...things that he’s been feeling lately, he doesn’t really understand it, but the center of it is- “Astral, what are you so afraid of?” He blurts out.

Astral faces him, and Yuma thinks they’re saying something, but it’s strange, the warm air is buzzing in his ears a bit too much. The familiar shape of the Emperor’s Key in his hand feels warm as if it’s alive and beating-

Suddenly, everything is spinning, and-

“Yuma!”

Something heavy and wet hits the back of his head, and for a second, they can’t breathe, and that’s bad but he doesn’t know why-

Then they break out from the stream, coughing out the water in them. It burns-

“Zexal.” They manage to say, because somehow, impossibly, in no chance whatsoever, that’s what happened-before coughing out what feels like their entire flesh.

**Author's Note:**

> I miss cicadas back home.


End file.
